


and the light touched even his soul

by With_a_backwards_w



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Crowley needs a hug, Light Angst, Light Pining, M/M, Pining, ineffable husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 03:27:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19803766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/With_a_backwards_w/pseuds/With_a_backwards_w
Summary: "O singer of Persephone!In the dim meadows desolateDost thou remember Sicily?"Theocritus, Oscar WildeCrowley figures out life after the first day of the rest of his life, in eleven parts.





	and the light touched even his soul

i.  
He's not a demon at all, he supposes.

Actually, by that school of thought, he can't really be an angel either.  
No, by all accounts, Crowley is perfectly, remarkably, neutral. Well, unremarkably neutral. There's no other kind, really.

He looks through the barely tinted window of the bus seat up at the night sky. If he tilts his head at the right angle, squints, and prays to God- Satan- _someone_ hard enough, he can just make out the faintest traces of Orion in the sprawling sky. It was pretty, he'd give it that.

Fun fact: Crowley had helped invent the concept of a constellation. Humanity was rather displeased at the prospect of making out stars to be various things, especially when those stars did not resemble the things they were meant to resemble at all. The former demon had been particularly proud of that invention. The last thing he expected was to ever fall in love with the stars, but he thinks it all worked out alright in the end.

He shifts his eyes back onto the rapidly dimming fluorescent lights of the bus and tries ever so hard to ignore the many potholes the bus driver is seemingly on a mission to hit.

ii.  
He spends his days driving through the crowded streets of London in his old Bentley and drinking cheap red wine in his small apartment. Aziraphale visits often enough so he isn't bored; quite the opposite, in fact. He finds himself becoming rather fond of his angel, even if he does dislike Queen and enjoys reading. Zira isn't an angel anymore, or at least isn’t regarded as one by Heaven, but he'll always remain so in Crowley's eyes, even if the craggy line between Heaven and Hell has always been a primrose one. 

Crowley lives in the leather seat of his car, ignores calls from Hastur and seldom checks his voicemail. Instead, he drives further.

iii.  
In a life long ago, he was good. He must have been, even if he can't remember it right now. He wouldn't have been an angel otherwise. He just fell with the wrong people.

iv.  
He stayed drunk for three days after Aziraphale refused his request for holy water, living in the bar more often than not. The observant human would have noted that Crowley could have easily sobered up, and the former demon had been aware of this, but he hadn't put a single thought towards becoming sober those three days.

There's this thing about being drunk; it drains on the emotions. It takes longer for thoughts to process. Everything just seems slower and simpler. So, perhaps it is not the case that Crowley drank to take his mind off the pain of not having holy water. Perhaps he had heard that edge of concern in his angel's voice when he said no to the demon's request for insurance and was trying to convince himself it wasn't there through sips of disgustingly fine wine and whatever else was drinkable.

He knows that the angel refused because he thought Crowley would use it on himself.  
Frankly, how could that even have crossed Zira's mind? 

Fraternising. What an interesting word.

v.  
A cursed pair of lovers is a most apt way to describe Aziraphale and Crowley. It had been six thousand years since that fated meeting at the Eastern Gate. Perhaps they were always destined to run into each other one too many times. "Perhaps" seemed to be Crowley's favourite word these days. He lies in bed with Aziraphale, stroking the former angel's pastel blonde hair.  
"Remember the flaming sword?"  
Zira chuckles mirthlessly and Crowley feels a burst of love bloom out of his fingertips.  
Crowley's never interested himself in other mythologies, not until right now. The myth of- What was that one the Ancient Greeks believed in? Ah, right. Prometheus. His angel reminds him of Prometheus, fire on a sword now instead of a fennel stalk, watching out for the smaller people against the wishes of his fellow gods.  
Crowley also did that entire “caring” act, he supposed. Although, for the former demon, it was more of a matter of carefully balancing a scale between accomplishing just enough to keep his office happy and remaining kind to the humans. Hell is a nightmare, really. Heaven is one too, but in a different way.  
When he puts it that way, Heaven and Hell don't really seem very different anymore. At best, one is dark white and the other is light black.  
It stings that a single mistake or choice could have made them irreversibly lose this moment.

He decides to ignore that thought. He smiles at his angel and his angel smiles back.

Maybe in a different world, the two would have fallen asleep like this, sprawled over each other on Crowley’s single bed. Maybe they would have continued talking, only finishing hours past their bedtime. Maybe Crowley would have told him “I love you.” Maybe his angel would have even said it back.

Instead, the former demon spares a pitiful glance at his angel and moves to the couch. Better to not make anything of it.

vi.  
People stop hearing about Anthony J Crowley at some point. He becomes one of those people you think about maybe every two years at best. You'll probably be cleaning the house and remember your childhood idol and think "Oh! I wonder how he's doing!" and search him up in a futile attempt to find out what he's up to now.

Crowley fades off the internet eventually. He always found solace in life's smaller things anyway. 

He starts reading at some point, Wilde and Sappho and all those great poets his angel recommended. He engages in conversation and learns of Zira's love for Wilde. Crowley knew Wilde for a little while. He was a bright guy, rather eccentric, his mind always filled with those “gods” that the Ancient Greeks worshipped. Those gods didn’t exist, obviously. Regardless, what seemed strange about the man to Crowley was always made up through his charm and wit. He rather enjoyed Wilde’s poem Theocritus, even if he didn’t quite get all the cultural references. The demon would be lying if he said, that, even now, he doesn’t miss Oscar sometimes. He isn't sure if his angel is aware of the later years of the author's life, but decides not to press the issue.

The poor bastard, he thinks as he flicks through a biography of the author.

vii.  
Crowley has long since dropped his snake disguise and claims of evil. He fights other fights now, wandering instead in smoky back alleys with dimly-lit lights and an invading sense of hostility in his free time. He glares at litterers with an apathetic and tiredly pointed stare and cusses out corrupt politicians. He's no longer on the front line of good and evil, but he's long since learned there are other fights that matter just as much, maybe sometimes even more.

viii.  
There's more to life than being alone. He knows that.

ix.  
But knowing and accepting are vastly different things.

x.  
Time marches on and days blur into weeks which blur into months. He drinks and reads and drives and talks to Aziraphale. He himself is immortal, and hence doesn't find the need to track time, but slowly notices the passage of time anyway through Hell's reduced amount of calls and Aziraphale's visits getting more common.

The former demon is in love. There's no more use denying it. It is, as one former angel might say, ineffable. He knows his angel loves him back. It's obvious, really. That’s really Crowley’s one saving grace at this point.

xi.  
Aziraphale has started to get used to Crowley's reckless driving, and more often than not, accompanies him on his long drives. Sometimes they will depart before the sun rises and come back more than fifteen hours later, smelling of alcohol and each other. Today, Crowley drives alone. He fishes around half-heartedly for a recording of something that isn't Queen's Best Hits, but upon being unable to find one, takes the cassette and sets it to shuffle, only to hear the familiar introduction of Bohemian Rhapsody play. He cautiously listens to the track, hypervigilant to any calls from Hell. When none come, an overwhelming feeling of nostalgia, and, strangely, remorse, flood him to the point of breaking.

He collects himself.

"Beezlebub has a Devil put aside for me!"

He pauses, seemingly quiet, then lets out an ear-piercing scream, slamming his fist against the steering wheel, hard enough that it would have left bruises, had Crowley been a mortal.

And, for the first time in a very long time; far longer than he would ever wish to admit, Crowley, a not-quite demon-angel-human who did not Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards, stops his car in the middle of the M25 and cries.

**Author's Note:**

> Crowley deserves love tbh


End file.
